My Mistakes As An Entrepreneur With Vipul Jaiswal

Miti Vaidya

Hi everyone, Vipul will join us in a couple of minutes

01:06 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Hi

01:08 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Hello Guys

01:08 PM

Miti Vaidya

Hi Vipul, thanks so much for joining us!

01:11 PM

Surya Prakash Pandey

Hi Vipul

01:11 PM

Miti Vaidya

Since the chat is about your mistakes as an entrepreneur, could you maybe tell us a couple of the biggest ones you've made so far? Stuff that you feel now that you should have done differently perhaps?

01:11 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Hi Miti, there are number mistakes that I have made in this carrier as an entrepreneur. Probably every 3 months, months, weekly whenever you look back you realised new ways to doing things better.

01:14 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

biggest mistake would be things like:

01:14 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Actually all big mistakes are the places where traditional wisdom is required and you go wrong there, may be because of lack of experience or for being over smart. For a long time i thought that I can bank on one or two clients and extract maximum business from them, but thats a wrong strategy. Never keep all eggs in the same basket.

01:16 PM

Nidhi Malkan

Hi Vipul What are the few things that a person needs to keep in mind while conducting a Market Research? Any mistakes that can be avoided?

01:18 PM

Miti Vaidya

from the chat introduction (and what your friend kunj also told us :P), you seem to have had a LOT of crazy experiences while doing market research. care to share a couple of anecdotes? :D

01:18 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Once in the starting few months of my agency, I hired someone who had 3-4 times more experience than me and I made that person almost double of what I would have paid myself. Till here it was fine, but then I allowed the person to take decision for the company the way my senior would have taken. That is where i went wrong.

01:19 PM

Nidhi Malkan

Hi Vipul What are the few things that a person needs to keep in mind while conducting a Market Research? Any mistakes that can be avoided?

01:18 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Define you research objectives as crisply as you can. Any written line in your research objective should mean only one and only one thing. Define the method you will use to gather information. Put yourself in your respondents shoes and situation and think how you will reply and how much time you will give, when someone completely unknown approaches you for a short research interview. Think through how you will analyse the captured information. After you have planned everything, simply execute it till the end. Insights will happen if you did as planned.

01:22 PM

Jewel Sheikh

Hi Vipul. What according to you is the importance of market research for an company. How well it can help/support the future decisions of a firm.

01:24 PM

Saneeya Agrawal

Hi Vipul! Has social media influenced market research in any way?

01:25 PM

Heer Shingala

Can you tell us an example where instict trumped market research?

01:27 PM

Miti Vaidya

from the chat introduction (and what your friend kunj also told us :P), you seem to have had a LOT of crazy experiences while doing market research. care to share a couple of anecdotes? :D

01:18 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

A number of them, my experiences started with interviewing a Wine Distillery Owner from Nasik and has gone up till the Boot Leggers in Maharashtra, WestBengal, Karnataka where we discussed risks involved in illegal trade of alcohol. Once I had an experience of conducting a vehicle positioning research for Bajaj, they have made a great commercial vehicle named QUTE RE60. Its the first quadracycle in the world and is already launched in 18 countries. We had the opportunity to take an yet to be launched vehicle on city roads and understand peoples reactions.

01:28 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

I was doing sense where I had to deal with government employees who remove their shirts and hang them to the chair, so that it takes with 10 minutes to wear it, spit their Pan and then come for the work you have called them.

01:29 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

I was doing Census of India*

01:29 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Experiences in rural India are always great to understand customer behaviour and planning for every product they need to buy.

01:30 PM

Heer Shingala

Can you tell us an example where instict trumped market research?

01:27 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

No it never that ways. The biggest tool of the researcher is curiosity and second biggest tool is lack of subject expertise. A number of times when you see a client brief, you instinctively know what can be done. Trust me, even the client is a smart person, s/he and their team would have also solved it instinctively. As a researcher you have to go beyond your personal instincts and conduct the needed process. If all findings are exactly same as what your instincts suggested, probably you have done the research wrong.

01:35 PM

Saneeya Agrawal

Hi Vipul! Has social media influenced market research in any way?

01:25 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Yes, very significantly. There are dedicated agencies for social research, they scan and study what different profiles post, like, dislike, share, follow. It all gives an insight into the latest trends and mindset. Social Media is all a big driver in finding relevant respondents. A lot of researchers recruit on social media and conduct groups online. Intercity groups are happening on Google Meet. Number to other things, research keeps adapting with technology.

01:38 PM

Jewel Sheikh

Hi Vipul. What according to you is the importance of market research for an company. How well it can help/support the future decisions of a firm.

01:24 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

It is very very important, my carrier is based out of it. Otherwise also, consider an example of you purchasing a phone worth 30k without any background research Vs you purchasing a phone worth 30k with significant amount of research, customer reviews, product trials, etc. What do you think is a better way and do you think it is important to follow such a procedure? For companies it is the same, they are investing money in a marketing plan, it would be good for them if they invest 5-10% in market research.

01:42 PM

Miti Vaidya

Vipul, there must have instances when the client ignores the market research despite the data isnt it? Or when the client "wants" a specific result. How do you deal with such situations?

01:44 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

There is very strong power in documentation and reporting. When you submit a research report, it takes real daring for a client to ignore the findings completely and do whatever s/he wants. In such cases it is best to not commission a research at all, when you face a client who wants to influence research decisions, you can always understand where is the person coming from and is a relevant logical business angle that you might have missed but this person knows about it.

01:47 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

After all of this, best suggestion would be stick to your ethics.

01:47 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

A number of times when you work for a industry your knowledge is limited and based on 2-3-4 projects that you have done for the company, however certain experts in the company know the business for decades. As a researcher you have to take their opinions into consideration even if they are contradicting to your findings. Ask for time, rethink and come back.

01:49 PM

sanika raul

hey !!

01:54 PM

sanika raul

i would like to ask you If you could change or reverse one career decision of the past, what would it be?

01:55 PM

Jewel Sheikh

Hi Vipul. What according to you is the importance of market research for an company. How well it can help/support the future decisions of a firm.

01:24 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

It is always important to understand who you are selling, what are his/her needs, how is you offering being perceived. You need market research for so many things - to measure employee satisfaction you need it, for setting up future targets you need internal research, to make mega changes in your offering you have to check customer acceptance. Market research helps you take a more informed decision in every aspect of business and strategy.

01:55 PM

sanika raul

i would like to ask you If you could change or reverse one career decision of the past, what would it be?

01:55 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

I had started with a text data analytics software, according to me it was quite good, it took time to click in the market, when it clicked and was picking speed. I thought it was restricting in some way, it is about only a part of research which is analytics and not complete research. I thought this business will take all of time and restrict me, so I stopped offering the service to other agencies. Now I think i was a really wrong mistake, i should have continued with it. Starting it again will take all the efforts again.

01:59 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

And now i realise, it was a really handsome steam of money in flow and a good product for market.

02:00 PM

sanika raul

i would like to ask you If you could change or reverse one career decision of the past, what would it be?

01:55 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

There have been times when have had regular business from client, times when a client became really comfortable with us and trusted our quality of work. In certain situations, in a zeal of do more and more projects and make more and more clients, I have sometime I feel not given best of the quality outputs to my clients. then it hurts, when they go away or reduce the work coming to your agency. It takes more efforts to rebuild the trust of quality.

02:03 PM

saurabh jaiswal

hello sir

02:04 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

So never take any work lightly. Take work only if you can do 100% justice to it.

02:04 PM

saurabh jaiswal

hello sir

02:04 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

hi

02:04 PM

sanika raul

so how did you get an idea or the business?

02:05 PM

sanika raul

so how did you get an idea or the business?

02:05 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

please rephrase, didn't get you. I did research specialisation in my MBA from MICA and then worked for 1 yr 8 months with IMRB International.

02:06 PM

sanika raul

so how did you get an idea for the business?

02:06 PM

sanika raul

so how did you get an idea for the business?

02:06 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

I was better ways to do things, and decide to try it myself. the industry is open to freelancers, i started as one and then things moved form there.

02:08 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

I saw*

02:08 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Ok, thanks guys. It was great to chat on Konversations platform. best wishes (Y)

02:10 PM

saurabh jaiswal

i want to ask one thing. how you calculate the risk involved in your business? i have heard that higher the risk higher return. but it only happens in favorable situations. what steps should be taken to minimize the losses?

02:11 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

Its a very detailed question saurabh, basically you have to slowly increase your risk taking appetite. Invest your year on year earnings to reap year on year returns.

02:13 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

one easy way to calculate things at the start can be by breaking down things into ManDays or ManHours. ManDays of earnings that you need to survive every month, ManDays of earnings that you for future months, ManDays you can afford in hiring more people. Employees take one or two months to get into system and start becoming productive. Understand ManDays invested and Mandayds earned in return... and so on, keep planning.

02:15 PM

Miti Vaidya

Vipul, I really appreciate you taking time out for answering all our questions tonight. It was interesting, especially about your experience with bootleggers and wine distilleries :D Thanks so much.

02:16 PM

Vipul Jaiswal

You are welcome. Great connecting with you guys. Cheers.

02:17 PM